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Copy 1 




SPEECHES 



OF 



Hon. Chauncey M. Depcw, LLD. 



At the Dinner Given by the Pilgrims 
Society of New York to the Right 
Reverend, the Lord Bishop of Lon- 
don, on October IS, 1907, 

At the Dinner Given by the Lotos Club 

to Rear-Admiral Robley D. Evans 

on November 2, 1907, 

> 

At the Dinner of the Hungry Club 

of New York on December 28, 1907, 



At the Annual Dinner of the 
Automobile Club in New York, on 
January 25, 1908. 




4 4. 

At the Dinner Given by the Pilgrims Society of x^j* 
New York to the Right Reverend, the Lord 
Bishop of London, on October 15, 1907. 

At this meeting in compliment to the Bishop of London 
Mr. W. Butler Duncan presided. The speeches of welcome were 
made by Ex-Judge Alton B. Parker, the Democratic candidate for 
President in the last election, and Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Pres- 
ident of Columbia University, and the farewell by Senator Depew. 

Mr. President, My Lord Bishop, 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

We Pilgrims are delighted to greet our brother 
from England. The vigorous and inspiring work of 
the Bishop of London in the under world of that me- 
tropolis has been known to us for years. Its breezv 
optimism and admirable results have been lessons for 
our own labors in similar fields. 

We have all been deeply interested in the eloquent 
speech of our friend Judge Parker and the charming 
American spirit in which he alluded to his late contest 
for the Presidency of the United States as the candi- 
date of the Democratic party. When he said, how- 
ever, that he would not in any way except this " talk 
politics " I was in doubt. I knew he meant it, and 



also how uncontrollable is the habit. He must have 
had in mind the recent tragedies in the Republican 
party when he made the remark, which it was only 
possible for a Democrat to make, that a little of the 
inspiring fluid taken in moderation did not alarm him. 
There was also one remark in the instructive and 
illuminating address which we have heard from the 
Bishop which never would have been made by an 
American in public life in these times of fervid agita- 
tion and legislation, when he frankly admitted he en- 
joyed riding in a private car and upon a pass. 

We owe a debt to our newspapers for the enter- 
prise with which they present every morning to their 
readers a photograph of the political, religious, literary 
and scientific activities among English-speaking peo- 
ples. It does more than diplomacy or conventions or 
conferences to promote peace and bring us together. 
We have been for at least two decades as familiar with 
the daily walk, characteristics, life and achievements of 
the statesmen, preachers and scientists of Great Britain 
as our own. This practice has within the last decade 
entered English journalism, and now our kin across 
the sea know more about us than ever before. 



3 

We have become accustomed to having the ubiqui- 
tous reporter meet a well-known Englishman at the 
New York quarantine and demand in advance his 
views of the politics and characteristics of the people 
he has come to visit. There is a bit of Yankee shrewd- 
ness in this. He can say only nice things of those 
who are to be his hosts, and what he may say or write 
afterward does not count. 

There is this difference between the American and 
the English reporter: The American wants ideas of 
our country ; the Englishman never asks the opinion 
of the traveler upon anything English, but seeks infor- 
mation as to the prospects of our crops, our financial 
situation, the tendency of the stock market and who 
will be the next President. 

Ten years ago when I arrived in London I would 
receive a letter from the managers of the newspapers 
requesting a date for their representatives to call, and 
the reporters would submit their manuscript before 
publication. Now no American is safe on arrival 
either at Queenstown, Plymouth, Liverpool or South- 
ampton from the scribe and the camera fiend. 

American literature and the stage of both countries 



4 
have presented the Englishman as self-centered, un- 
emotional and unsympathetic upon all occasions, 
tragic or otherwise. But I was fortunate in being 
present at the historic reception given this summer by 
the Pilgrims of London to Mark Twain. I never had 
seen the political idol of the hour in our country re- 
ceived with more spontaneous cordiality or more wild 
enthusiasm than was our great humorist by these rep- 
resentative Englishmen. The audience warmed to 
Mark in a way that melted him, and they caught on 
to his jokes. 

Such gatherings as the one at the Savoy hotel in 
London and this at the Plaza here to-night surpass, in 
all that makes for the good fellowship that promotes 
the friendly relations between the United States and 
Great Britain, the anti-warlike and disarmament prop- 
ositions at The Hague eloquently discussed, tenta- 
tively considered and timidly suppressed or defeated. 

Many years ago I met an enthusiastic fellow coun- 
tryman in London who said he had postponed his 
return home in order to be on hand and witness one 
of the great events in history, when the Throne should 
be changed for the Presidency, the House of Lords 



5 
abolished and the Church disestablished. I said, 

"How long have you postponed your trip in order 

to witness this cataclysm?" He said, " Six weeks." 

This American no longer exists, except among the 

very young. 

A sweet girl graduate from one of New England's 
famous colleges who had been educated on Webster's 
oration at Bunker Hill and the histories of my distin- 
guished friend, Senator Cabot Lodge, was this sum- 
mer in London pleasing an eminent English statesman 
at a dinner one night by her freshness and brightness. 
He finally said to her, paying the highest compliment 
in his repertoire, "Well, my dear, you know we are 
one." She answered, " Nothing of the kind. We are 
one in no way except that you speak our language." 

When we visit England we go to London, which is 
more than any other city the metropolis of the world. 
There we meet every variety of character and genius 
of the English, the Irish, the Scotch and the Welsh. 
We also meet all that there is of distinction of every 
race and nationality in the world. It is a liberal edu- 
cation and dissolves provincialism, and promotes the 
common citizenship of this old earth. But we in this 



country have many capitals. To understand us the 
stranger visiting our shores must see them all. Their 
differences are illustrated by an old story, and I have 
found that the older the story the fewer there are who 
have heard it. The Boston man in Heaven said to 
Saint Peter, " I see nothing here which is better than 
Boston;" while the Chicago man remarked to his 
guide in the other world, " I had no idea that Heaven 
was so much like Chicago," and the guide grimly 
answered, " But this is not Heaven." 

The foreigner who stays in New York sees the 
people in our country through glasses before one of 
which is terrapin and the other canvasback duck. 
These unequaled native delicacies are American, but 
they are not the United States. 

It is the habit of all people to compare the dis- 
tinguished men of other countries with those of their 
own. The highest compliment an Englishman can 
pay to an American is to say that he resembles in 
charm, tactfulness and talent for affairs the peace- 
maker of Europe, who has done more than all the 
diplomats to avert war and advance the best interests 
of his own kingdom, King Edward. The German 






7 
exhausts his vocabulary of compliment when he says 
that our President is remarkably like the Kaiser. 
I think that we will all admit that there is a general 
and remarkable resemblance in the characteristics 
of the Kaiser, President Roosevelt and the Lord 
Bishop of London. 

It is seldom that the world stands still even for 
an hour in these busy days of the universal inter- 
communication of intelligence, but the feat of Joshua 
when he commanded the sun and moon to stand 
still has been recently surpassed. For nearly a week 
the British Premier's movement against the House 
of Lords did not interest Great Britain. The trusts, 
predatory wealth and the stock market received no 
attention in the United States. We were on tiptoe 
of anxious inquiry on both sides of the Atlantic to 
discover who won that game of lawn tennis. The 
world was relieved when the Bishop with charming 
frankness said, " I did." But we can assure him and 
his countrymen that in this contest with our Presi- 
dent there are other fields of activities yet to be tried. 
I am quite sure the Bishop has not shot a bear. 

Our guest has come to us on one of the most 



8 
important missions. As history goes we are not an 
old nation, but there are events in the story of our 
growth which exceed in their results the evolution 
of the ages. 

Three hundred years ago the first English colonists 
settled at Jamestown and brought with them their 
Church. The Bishop comes with a message from 
that ancient Church to her daughter in the United 
States and lays upon the altar of the sacred edifice 
erected three centuries ago in the wilderness of Vir- 
ginia the Bible presented by the King. We may differ 
widely in our interpretation of the Bible ; some may 
doubt its inspiration, but all will admit that it has been 
the great welding power in the civilization and com- 
radeship of English-speaking peoples. On both sides 
of the Atlantic it carries through life the best inspiration 
and tenderest memories of kindred, family and home. 
All literature has not contributed so much as this 
fountain of noble and lofty expressions and of 
English undefiled. But the most valuable and 
cherished message which the Bishop has brought 
is the Bishop himself. The principles enforced in 
his sermons and his healthy activities in the public 






9 
interests are singularly in touch and harmony with 

American thought and work. 

In bidding him farewell with our best wishes for 
a pleasant voyage, we hope his visit is only an 
introduction preceding many returns. We were 
interested in what we read of him, but the better 
we know him the more we want of him. 



At the Dinner Given by the Lotos Club to Rear- 
Admiral Robley D. Evans on November 2, 
1907. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

It is a rare pleasure to escape even for an evening 
from the troubled waters of finance to the safe and 
peaceful waves upon which our navy gloriously floats ; 
and, speaking of trouble, it is the distinction of the 
Admiral that he has never avoided it anywhere and 
has always beaten it. 

There is a story current in Washington which prob- 
ably is not true but so characteristic as to be generally 
believed. The officers of the navy are always relig- 
ious on Sunday morning. Wherever they may be on 
shore or afloat they go to church. It is reported that 
Admiral Evans, being in New York, entered a fashion- 
able church near his hotel and somehow escaped the 
watchful sexton and seated himself comfortably in 
the corner of one of the best pews. The owner and 
his wife coming in discussed with each other in great 



12 



indignation this intrusion of a stranger upon their 
sacred preserves. The pewholder finally wrote on 
his card, handed it to his wife, who nodded her ap- 
proval, and passed it on to the Admiral. It read, 
11 Do you know, sir, that I pay one thousand dollars a 
year for this pew?" The Admiral promptly wrote 
underneath and passed it back. " You pay a damned 
sight too much. Robley D. Evans, Rear-Admiral, U. 
S. N." I am sure when the recording angel grasped 
the situation that in his laughter at the discomfiture of 
the Pharisee his tears blotted out the expletive. 

We have Pharisees in the Church, in the professions, 
in business, in public life, and sometimes even in 
journalism, but I never have known a distinguished 
officer of brilliant record, either in the army or the 
navy, who claimed that he was better, or braver, or 
greater than his associates and who did not most gen- 
erously accord to each his full meed of merit. " I am 
holier than thou " is happily not one of the character- 
istics of those honorable professions the Navy and the 
Army. 

On the worst day of the panic when money was 
impossible for the millionaire or the working man to 



13 



get, I walked into a book store. Books are luxuries 
and not salable in panics. I was the only prospective 
customer. The salesman finally forced upon me a 
series of volumes I did not want, nor would any one 
else, when I heard a fellow salesman whisper to him, 
" I think the proper thing for you to offer the Senator 
would be the works of Charles Lamb." In no stress 
of weather during his long life has our open-minded, 
open-hearted and red-blooded guest ever been a lamb 
or fooled by a lemon. 

The point of our compliment to-night is to the men 
who do things. We have passed many an evening in 
this club honoring gentlemen who speak or write 
things. In the last analysis those whose business 
it is to act save the day. It was the speeches of 
Adams, Otis and Patrick Henry which brought on the 
Revolutionary War, but it was Washington and his 
Continental army who won the battle. It was Wen- 
dell Phillips, Garrison and Wade preaching anti- 
slavery in the North and Jefferson Davis, Toombs 
and Benjamin advocating secession in the South 
which brought on the Civil War, but it was Grant, 
Sherman, Sheridan and the Grand Army on land 



14 
and Farragut and Porter and the Navy on the seas 

which saved the republic. 

We have just passed through a crisis surpassing in 
perils to business that of '57, of '61, of '73, of '84 and 
of '93, all of which I witnessed. The internal inter- 
change in production and manufactures in the United 
States surpasses that of all the rest of the world. Less 
than five per cent, of it is done with money and more 
than ninety-five per cent, with credit. In this fabric of 
national credit is every bank, every railroad, every 
manufactory and every department of capital, labor, 
wages and employment in the country. For two days 
it seemed as if it might tumble about our ears and 
the consequence be more disastrous than any ever 
before known upon this continent, but the day was 
saved by the pluck, courage and genius for affairs 
of the men who do things. 

The late William C. Whitney, when Secretary of 
the Navy, happily and farsightedly inaugurated the 
beginning of the building of a fleet which should be 
commensurate with our position and power among 
nations. This has progressed under the influence 
of Roosevelt until now we are nearly, if not quite, 



*5 
second among naval powers. A navy is to protect 

the coasts of its country and its commerce. Our 
coast on the mainland is practically impregnable, 
our distant colonial possessions are dependent upon 
our navy, but we are alone among the great indus- 
trial peoples in having no across-ocean mercantile 
marine and no foreign commerce under the American 
flag. The merchant ships of Great Britain and Ger- 
many which are sailing upon every sea would in case 
of war be convoyed by battle ships, cruisers, torpedo 
boats and torpedo-boat destroyers. From the mercan- 
tile marine of these countries would be drafted into 
their navies as auxiliaries a vast fleet of merchant 
vessels equipped with every modern appliance, and 
especially constructed for naval purposes. We would 
have practically none. We are compelled to rely 
on alien vessels to coal and supply the fleet about 
to sail for the Pacific under the command of 
our guest. I remember when a youth the pride 
which every American boy had in the clipper ships, 
which surpassed in speed all others and gave to us 
a position equal if not superior to any upon the 
ocean. I remember when iron succeeded wood how 



i6 
the Collins line of American steamers, still in the 
front as to speed and efficiency, maintained the pride 
and power of the American flag upon the seas. 
But when the policy of the United States was 
changed and our mercantile marine was dropped 
by our government, while that of European countries 
was sustained, our flag disappeared in foreign com- 
merce. It was once our proud boast that there was 
no port in the world where we were not honorably 
represented, and now the American traveler can belt 
the globe, and go in and out of its oceans and seas, 
and in and out of the ports of Asia, Africa and 
Europe without once seeing from the masthead of 
the crowded shipping the emblem of his country. 
The supremacy of the seas has gone to England in 
the Lucania, to Germany in the Deutschland and 
to France in the Savoie. 

The tradition and glories of the seas have come 
down through countless generations. Nothing so 
much interests peoples of every country as achieve- 
ment upon the waters. A hundred thousand English- 
men cheered the Lusitania when she started upon 
her trial trip and thousands of Americans applauded 



*7 
her when she had won the trophy and docked in 

New York. But she was a British vessel built with 
the assistance of money contributed from the treasury 
of the British Government. The Mauretania, still 
larger and still faster, was cheered last week upon 
her trial trip by hundreds of thousands of English 
and Irish, and she too, when arriving in New York 
and winning the trophy for speed and superiority, will 
be hailed by thousands of Americans. The Germans 
are building still larger and still faster vessels and the 
competition if successful will receive the applause of 
the Germans and the cheers of the Americans. But, 
where are we ? Even Norway and Belgium are our 
superiors. We are a protectionist country protecting 
every article in which is invested capital or labor, but 
we are free traders on the ocean. England is a free- 
trade country, but recognizing that commerce is her 
life blood she is protected to the backbone upon the 
seas. Foreign nations can construct and run their 
ships at nearly one-half less than we can because of 
our higher wages, and they have subsidies besides. 
Money to the amount of less than the cost of a single 
battleship annually contributed to our mercantile 



i8 

marine would make us equal in cost of building and 
operating with other countries, and American energy, 
enterprise and genius could be relied upon to do the 
rest. 

Our post office advertises that letters for South 
America will be mailed by the steamers leaving on 
certain dates for English ports, there to be transferred 
to English vessels for South America. 

Secretary Root made a most brilliant and successful 
expedition among the southern republics and did 
more for our diplomacy with them than any statesman 
in our history, and yet except for better and more per- 
manent political relations it will be barren of results, 
because trade follows the flag and our flag does not 
go between North and South America except upon a 
few ships to a few ports. 

We glory in our navy, but some of us at least can- 
not help mourning that one of its most useful pur- 
poses, the promotion, extension and protection of our 
commerce, can have no possible place in its opera- 
tions. Oh ! for the return of the day when Americans 
can be proud and happy because the position of their 
clipper ships has been regained by their steamships. 



*9 
This dinner is a hail and farewell to the gallant 

Admiral upon his voyage to the Pacific ocean. The 
commotion which this expedition has created, and the 
discussion it has aroused all over the world, is one of 
the eccentricities of the times. We have three thou- 
sand miles of coast on the Atlantic, and its harbors 
are familiar with our fleet. We have many more 
miles on the Pacific and most of its harbors have 
never seen an American battleship, or known the in- 
spiration and education of an American man-of-war 
at their docks. Midway in the Pacific are our Hawai- 
ian islands and nearest to the Orient the Philippines. 
China, the great market of the future for industrial 
countries producing a surplus from their workshops, 
feels more friendly to us than to all others because 
in the matter of the indemnity which was exacted for 
the losses in the Boxer War the United States alone 
kept only what was due and honorably returned the 
balance. The Chinaman, as all know, as a merchant 
is the most honorable trader in the east. His word is 
as good as his bond, and nothing reaches or impresses 
him so much as commercial honesty in other nations 
and peoples. And yet, if these pessimists are right, 



20 

the harbors on the Pacific coast whose boys and 
girls might be inspired with patriotism by the pres- 
ence of an American fleet must not see the flag. 
Honolulu and the Philippines, which can only be 
protected and maintained in case of trouble by an 
American fleet, must not know by observation that 
we have one. And the Orient, which believes only 
what it sees, must not be reminded of the fact 
that the United States is second among the naval 
powers of the world. Why ! Why ! Can our fleet sail 
only on the Atlantic ocean? Why! must it not sail 
on the Pacific ocean? The answer is because it 
would offend the susceptibilities of the new power 
in the east — Japan. In the first place, I believe that 
the Japanese statesmen are too sensible and too 
well informed to have any such feeling, or to desire 
trouble with the United States. In the next place, 
where any fleet of any friendly nation goes, ours 
can go if it likes, and it is no one's business but 
our own. Curiously enough there is precedent in 
our history as the youngest among naval nations 
for warning us off different seas. We were told 
during the Revolutionary War that if we attempted 



21 

to have a navy our ships would be treated as pirates 
and their officers hung. And yet that idea was 
defeated gloriously and decisively by the father of 
the American navy, Commodore Paul Jones. 

Just before and after the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, or say a little over a hundred years 
ago, the moors of Morocco, Algiers and Tripoli 
warned us that they would be deeply offended if 
our navy entered the Mediterranean. They then 
insisted that our merchant ships should pay. tribute 
for navigating that sea. As a result we paid eighty 
thousand dollars to Morocco for this permit and forty 
thousand to Algiers for the release of American sea- 
men who had been captured and held as slaves, and 
an annual tribute of twenty-five thousand dollars 
besides, and then we presented to the Dey of Algiers 
a ship of war which cost us a hundred thousand 
dollars. When the subsidy for 1800 was sent in the 
frigate George Washington, commanded by Captain 
Bainbridge, the Dey ordered his own tribute to the 
Sultan of Turkey, consisting of slaves mainly, to be 
taken on board and carried to Constantinople, and 
that the American flag should be hauled down and 



22 

his own hoisted in its place. The American consul 
made Bainbridge agree to this, and that splendid 
naval officer swore that if he ever again was asked to 
undertake such a mission he would deliver it at the 
mouth of his guns. The American spirit was at last 
aroused and our navy let loose. It was not long 
before Bainbridge, Decatur, Hull and Rogers forever 
settled the question of the right of the American navy 
to sail over the Mediterranean the same as the ships 
of war of any other nation. 

In 1812 Great Britain disputed the equal privileges 
of the United States upon the Atlantic Ocean. Com- 
modore Perry on Lake Erie, and Decatur, and Hull, 
and Bainbridge again on the Atlantic, established for- 
ever the unquestioned right of the American flag on 
its ships of war, and on its merchantmen to be unmo- 
lested on the Atlantic. And now in this year of Grace 
one thousand nine hundred and seven, after a cen- 
tury of preparation, of production, of progress and of 
power, it is proposed to close to us the Pacific, in 
which we have as great interests as any other nation. 
Gentlemen, there will be no war. After this expedi- 
tion the American navy will be able to sail where it 



23 



is ordered, and when the United States Government 
thinks it expedient, without any question being raised 
on any pretext of sensitiveness or hostility. 

The President of the United States sends to the 
Senate for confirmation his appointments of judges 
of our courts, ambassadors, ministers and consuls. He 
sends also for confirmation his appointments and pro- 
motions of officers of our Army and Navy. The wis- 
dom of these appointments is often questioned in the 

Senate. But there was an announcement in the paper 

< 

this week which pleased every member of that body 
without regard to party. It was that the office of 
Vice-Admiral would be created and the President 
would send in to fill that supreme commission the 
name of our guest of to-night, Rear-Admiral Robley 
D. Evans. 



At the Dinner of the Hungry Club of New 
York on December 28, 1907. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It is a great pleasure to meet here such a unique 
and original organization. Your President, Miss 
Sheridan, is always unique and ever original, so any 
organization over which she presides must possess 
these characteristics. I thought at first that my invi- 
tation to be the guest of honor at the Hungry Club 
was due to the reputation I had acquired in fifty years 
of attendance at public dinners of an inappeasable 
appetite, and that my hosts wanted to teach me how 
much more economical, satisfactory and healthy it is 
to believe you have dined than to eat a square meal. 
My wife asked me before coming to you whether I 
had not better dine beforehand or have something 
ready to appease hunger when I returned home, but 
if she saw the abundance you have on your menu her 
anxiety would be relieved. I have discovered, how- 
ever, happily for me, that the true secret of longevity 
is to be at such dinners as often as possible, but never 



26 

outside of one. Life insurance and medical statistics 
demonstrate that more people die from overeating 
than all other causes combined. At the public dinner, 
especially where, as a rule, the guests are selected 
people of special charm and brilliancy, men shovel 
with reckless inattention each of the many courses as 
they come along into an overloaded stomach, and 
suffer the consequences. Few of these convivial 
friends of mine passed the sixty-year limit. The vet- 
erans who are here because they have been wise and 
prudent I can count on the fingers of one hand. 

I was given a dinner once by a friend who wished 
to pay me for the many favors I had been glad to ex- 
tend. The guests were ideal, the dinner the best, and 
prepared by the most distinguished chef in New York, 
and the wines the oldest and rarest from his own 
cellar and those of his friends. I was then following 
the invariable rule when frequently dining out of con- 
fining myself to the roast and little wine and playing 
a knife-and-fork tune of hospitality with the rest of 
the courses to deceive the host. Grieved and disap- 
pointed, he took me to task for not appreciating an 
entertainment to which he had devoted so much time, 



27 

thought and expense. Then I told him my rule for 
combining this sort of pleasure with the retaining of 
a clear head and ability for good work during the 
social season. He said, "Well, I never could do that. 
I go to a dinner like this four times a year. I enjoy 
myself beyond words eating and drinking everything 
that is offered, and then stay in bed or in the house 
for a week." That doesn't pay. 

I was on my way one night to a dinner at Del- 
monico's. In the street-car a man sitting opposite 
looked at me curiously for a few minutes (I never 
had seen him before) and then said, " Mr. Depew, 
will you dine out to-night ? " I said, " Yes." " Well," 
he said, "we were talking about you at dinner this 
evening at our boarding-house, and the landlady said 
suggestively, ' I would like to board Chauncey Depew, 
because he never dines at home.' " 

One of the most witty, versatile and able of the 
members of the House of Representatives told me 
that he began life in the humblest way and had the 
hardest kind of a struggle during his early years. At 
one time he could find no other employment than 
that of waiter in the hotel of a Western city. Tired of 



28 

that, he succeeded, by the use of freight-trains and 
riding on trucks of passenger-cars, in getting across 
the Rockies to the Pacific coast. When he was 
elected to Congress he passed through this same 
city and stopped at the hotel where he had once 
served at the table. The waiter behind his chair was 
the one who had been his partner and room-mate in 
the old days, and was doing all that could be thought 
of in the way of attention which should suggest a 
liberal tip. When he turned around and spoke to 
his old friend the waiter gasped, nearly fainted, and 
then said, " Is it possible it is you, Bob ? How did 
you get by the clerk?" The Congressman said, 
"Yes, old man, it is me. When I left here I went 
West, studied law and am now a Congressman on 
my way to Washington." His friend threw up both 
hands and said, "Good Lord, why didn't I go West!" 
Some years ago I enjoyed the contrast of dining 
on succeeding nights with a company of tramps and 
a multi-millionaire. The rich man, who possessed 
more millions than I had years, said to me when his 
splendid banquet was over: "I am the unhappiest 
man alive. During my early life I worked hard, 



2 9 

heartily enjoyed the table, and slept well. Now there 
is no one in my employment who does not have a 
better time than I do. My stomach has gone back 
on me, the doctor gives me no hope of improvement, 
and with this has come insomnia and I cannot sleep. 
To see my guests (and I try to have only those who 
will enjoy good things) appreciating what my cook 
does is a great pleasure, but while the courses come 
and go I am rigidly confined to my toast, tea and milk, 
and feel that I am in the position of that old fellow, 
whose name I cannot recall, but who gave to our 
language the word 'tantalize.' The next evening 
was Christmas eve. One of the great journals of New 
York had decided to make a sociological experiment 
by giving a Christmas dinner to the unfortunates who 
stand at midnight in a line stretching for blocks from 
the door of Fleischman's bakery, each waiting his turn 
to receive the loaf of bread which Fleischman gives to 
those who ask every night. The representatives of 
the newspaper — a young man and young woman who 
were familiar with the work — went over and selected 
a hundred from those who were waiting, and one by 
one they came into the dining-room of the hotel. I 



30 
had been asked to preside. I went in full regalia, an 
evening costume with a rose in the buttonhole, feel- 
ing that I could pay them no better compliment than to 
dine with them in the same guise as would have been 
customary at Delmonico's or Sherry's. The dinner 
was abundant and thoroughly enjoyed. A lean and 
hungry Cassius-looking ex-school-teacher who sat 
opposite me was helped five times to the turkey, got 
outside of seven pieces of pie and drank six brimming 
cups of coffee. It was a difficult crowd to address, 
but I took for my theme, Christmas at home in the 
country in boyhood days, with its lesson of hope and 
dismissal of despair. That brought out a number of 
speeches of unusual excellence, everyone accepting 
and enforcing the idea of starting a new life from this 
touch of human sympathy. Several of the crowd 
were college graduates, one was a clergyman, one a 
naval engineer and many were experts and pro- 
ficients in different lines of industry. With only one 
exception there were no victims of bad habits. They 
had come to this great maelstrom of New York to 
better their condition, had failed, spent their earnings 
and were ashamed either to return home, acknowledg- 



3i 
ing their failure, or to appeal for help. None of them 
applied to me for assistance, but I heard afterward of 
many who from that night thanked God, took courage 
and won out. One was an Anarchist who said that 
he was doing very well, and was in the crowd to 
preach his doctrines to an audience which he thought 
would be peculiarly receptive. He grimly said, when 
leaving, if I had not turned out to be, in his judgment, 
a good fellow, he intended to emphasize the meeting 
by killing me. That experience confirmed for me 
what I have learned by long experience, that the cam- 
araderie of the dinner-table for friendship, for social 
enjoyment and for mission work in any line has mar- 
velous power and inspiration. 

What a glorious thing it is to have been born in 
the country. I remember — and doubtless you from 
the farms recall similar experiences — how supper 
tasted after a day in the fields or woods, or along the 
brooks, or fishing, rowing or skating. When I was a 
boy, after an old-fashioned country ball-game we would 
sit down under the best tree in my grandfather's or- 
chard, fill our straw hats to the brim with apples, eat 
every one, and still be able to diminish the larder at 



32 

the evening meal. I pity the city boy who knows not 
those delights of rough living in the country which 
build up constitutions that survive all shocks and 
stomachs capable of resisting all trials. The country 
boy has a dreamless sleep and a fresh awakening, and 
neither Bunker Hill Monument nor his ancestors sit 
on him during the night. 

There are many kinds of hunger. The most con- 
spicuous exhibit at the present time is the eager 
appetite for the Presidency of the United States. I 
am always in doubt which candidates want it most, 
those who profess their desire or those who coyly 
deny any such ambition. It is the most honorable 
place in the gift of any people, but the candidates 
assume the maiden's air and ways. Some are leap- 
year candidates, and propose; others say they are 
willing to be drafted; others that they do not want nor 
seek, but will obey the solemn voice of the people ; 
while still others, believing that everything comes to 
him who hustles while he waits, keep their lightning- 
rods high in the air. We have had many elections 
when it was of vital importance to the best interests of 
the Republic who was elected. We have fallen now, 



33 
however, upon times when radicalism has largely 

accomplished its purposes and secured its legislation, 

and the people desire to await the results of the 

experiments before trying other new schemes; so that, 

while some Presidents would be far better than others, 

the country will progress to a greater or less degree, 

dependent on the man and the party, whoever wins. 

In fifty-odd years upon the platform and meeting 

the public I have seen many phases of hunger for 

fame. I was reading this afternoon just before coming 

here the letters of the Roman statesman and orator, 

Cicero. They were collected shortly after his death 

and have come down to us. They prove that human 

nature was precisely the same, and that there was just 

as much of it two thousand years ago as to-day. He 

frequently remarks that he wants the applause of his 

contemporaries as well as immortality through coming 

generations. When he was driven from power into 

exile and his property seized, his letters are one long 

wail bedewed with floods of tears. When in power 

they were full of egotism, of ambition for great places, 

of desire for the favor of the crowd and anxiety to 

make money. Here is a bit from two of them which 



34 
I paraphrase. In the first he writes to his intimate: 

"B is one of the most valuable citizens of the republic. 
He has genius for affairs, great learning, and is wor- 
thy of the highest positions. He is a cordial friend of 
mine, and I hope at some time to be where I can give 
him a place worthy of his extraordinary powers." 
Then Cicero adds, " I do not believe any of these 
things, but I need the man and his services. Please 
therefore repeat to him what I have written about 
him, but not as if suggested by me." I have met with 
politicians in life who write just such letters. The 
second epistle is addressed to a gentleman who had 
compiled several volumes of a comprehensive history 
of Rome. Cicero says to him, " I have never met in 
my reading with a work so full, complete and accurate, 
such a valuable contribution to our country's history, 
and written with such eloquence, as the volumes 
which have come to my attention. As you are 
approaching the story of Catiline's conspiracy, I 
would suggest instead of making a chapter of it you 
put it in a separate volume. As you know, I un- 
earthed that conspiracy, defeated it, saved the repub- 
lic and brought Catiline to punishment ; I can furnish 



35 
you with my orations delivered in the Senate on the 

subject, and would also like to write some of the 
chapters, but of course that must not be known." 
This is a delicious bit of human nature, and I am 
acquainted with several statesmen of to-day who 
could emulate Cicero in this line. 

While it is saddening, it is also inspiring to go 
among the young Americans in the great capitals of 
Europe who are struggling for distinction in the arts, 
the professions, or in science. They live on a crust 
and high ideals. Their hunger is for fame, a superb 
ambition, and yet I do not believe that Titian or 
Raphael, Milton or Dante, Shakespeare or Bacon 
wrote for fame. Their hunger was to picture, as much 
for their own gratification as for others, the inspired 
ideals which were in their minds. There was buried 
last week in Westminster Abbey a man who has con- 
tributed more to useful and practical scientific research 
than any other in this generation. His labors for 
nearly seventy years were the results of the impelling 
force of an insatiable hunger for the discovery of the 
truth. Lord Kelvin will live as one of the benefac- 
tors of his race whose struggle was not for the laurel 



36 
wreath, for he never thought of that, but for benefits 
to mankind in developing the secrets of nature. 

Hunger has created heroes and influenced the des- 
tinies of races and nations. Alexander the Great 
wept because there were no more worlds to conquer, 
but an ignoble purpose carried Greek literature, re- 
finement, art and government to the uplifting of the 
effete and worn-out nations of the East. Caesar's 
hunger for power consolidated the breaking fragments 
of Rome and for succeeding centuries was inculcating 
law and orderly society among barbarous and sav- 
age tribes. Napoleon's hunger for universal empire 
spread the ideas of the French Revolution and 
created modern liberalism and radicalism in Europe. 
Take out of the life of young America the hunger to 
better his conditions and advance as near as possible 
to ideals in politics, business, invention, adventure 
and finance and American progress stops and retro- 
gression begins. 

But, my friends, I am wandering far afield. The 
poet, the elocutionist, the delineator and the artist are 
waiting to entertain us. It is good fellowship which 
for seventy-two successive Saturday nights has 



37 
brought together this company from the fields of 

journalism, literature, art and the professions. I 

know of no title which during this holiday season, or 

at any other period, is more gratifying for man or 

woman than that of "Good Fellow," and, so far as my 

experience and memory run, the Hungry Club stands 

pre-eminent in its good fellowship. 



Speech of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew at the 
Annual Dinner of the Automobile Club in 
New York, on January 25, 1908. 

Gentlemen : 

This club, with its appointments, its membership 
and its garage, is evidence of the remarkable progress 
of a new industry. The presence of the very accom- 
plished, able and distinguished Ambassador of France, 
who has come from Washington for the sole purpose 
of attending this meeting, shows the international in- 
terest in the automobile industry. In fact, the auto- 
mobile, to the completion and perfection of which 
French genius has contributed so largely, has done 
more to bring France and the United States close 
together than anything which has occurred since 
Lafayette joined the American army under General 
Washington. 

There is hardly any subject which does not have 
some bearing upon the views of the fathers of the Re- 
public. The Constitution which they framed remains 
exactly as it came from the hands of Washington, 



40 
Hamilton, Jefferson and Adams. It so completely 
embodies the essentials of representative government 
that it was sufficient for the three millions of 
people, with the wilderness behind them, of their 
time, as it is for the ninety millions in the forty-six 
States of to-day. If they could revisit the scenes of 
their activities they would feel at home and happy on 
the political side, but a few days' experience of mod- 
ern life would drive them back to their celestial 
abode. We cannot imagine the feelings of General 
Washington while going from New York to Wash- 
ington in five hours, when in his time it took that 
number of days, or of riding in a trolley-car through 
the streets of the Capital which he was at so much 
pains to lay out, or of talking a thousand miles 
through the telephone, or of sending a wireless mes- 
sage to London and receiving an answer within an 
hour, when communication between these points in his 
time took one hundred and twenty days. Speed is 
the factor of the world's progress. Time is, and 
always has been, everything. Speed and time meas- 
ure the capacity of the human intellect and the profit- 
ableness or failure of the farm, the mine, the factory 



4i 
and the store. They enable ten times as many peo- 
ple to live on this earth as could have existed one 
hundred years ago. They have made the luxuries of 
a century ago the commonplace comforts of to-day. 
Those of us who have passed the three-score-and-ten 
period have witnessed most of these marvels. We 
have seen the clipper-ship hailed as a wonder of the 
world because it reduced the crossing of the Atlantic 
from sixty to thirty days, and we have seen the Mauri- 
tania do the same in four days and a few hours. We 
have seen the sloop almost driven from the Hudson 
River by the. steamboat, and the steamboat reduced 
to limited usefulness by the railroad. We have seen 
the waterways on which our internal commerce 
wholly depended subordinated to the railroads be- 
cause of the influence of speed upon economy in time. 
The horse was developed with the greatest care to 
accomplish the same results. A second a mile to a 
trotter was of national importance. But now we have 
the horseless carriage for the roadway and tremendous* 
progress is being made on the airship. 

There is a tradition that some old fellow perfected 
a three-wheeled steam road-wagon eighty years ago. 



42 
His invention lay dormant for sixty years and was of 
little account until seventy had passed. The auto- 
mobile industry as an industrial and financial success, 
and a commercial and pleasure necessity is not over 
ten years old. 

Eleven years ago I was one of the committee with 
General Miles and others for a racing contest gotten 
up by John Brisben Walker for his "Cosmopolitan 
Magazine." All the best machines in the country, both 
foreign and domestic, were invited to compete. The 
course was along that excellent old highway, Broad- 
way, from New York to Ardsley, a distance of twenty- 
two miles. About twenty entered the race. They all 
broke down but three, which covered the distance to 
Ardsley and back to the starting-place in seven hours. 
On the Ormond beach in Florida the automobile of 
to-day runs from seventy to eighty miles an hour, and 
in the famous Vanderbilt contest on Long Island they 
did equally well, while at the Weybridge Motordrome 
in England the machines average sixty-six miles an 
hour with a continuous run of twenty-four hours. 

Statistics are dry, as a rule, but are at times most 
eloquent. In 190c there were onl> three thousand 



43 
seven hundred cars in use in the United States, both 

imported and of American make. In 1907 there were 
one hundred and fifty thousand, valued at two hun- 
dred and seventy millions of dollars. It has been 
estimated that the cash worth of these machines was 
more than the assessed valuation of all the land in the 
States of Florida, Nevada and Oregon, with the terri- 
tories of New Mexico and Arizona added. This 
industry, which had scarcely any recognition ten years 
ago, has progressed so rapidly that last year forty 
thousand automobiles were built, which were valued 
at eighty millions of dollars. The importance of this 
manufacture in the employment of both capital and 
labor has been almost wholly overlooked. There 
were six million one hundred and eighty thousand 
dollars paid last year in wages in the automobile fac- 
tories of the United States, and employment given 
directly or indirectly to over two millions of workers. 
For the first few years of the ten which we are 
considering we were dependent almost entirely upon 
foreign-built machines. Their popularity and use 
grew so rapidly that it has been estimated that the 
customs receipts from this absolutely new article in 



44 
our revenue schedule for ten years exceeds the total 

cost of our diplomatic and consular service. It is a 

source of pride in which we take supreme satisfaction 

that we have made so much improvement upon 

r 

machinery for various industries which was invented 
in older countries we are enabled to compete -with 
them in all the markets of the world. Our loco- 
motives are on the rails in Europe, Asia and Africa. 
Our electrical trolley systems are in the cities of all 
these continents and in Australia. Our agricultural 
implements are plowing the fields which were trodden 
by Roman soldiers and the Goths, the Huns and the 
Vandals. In the hot competition to meet the con- 
stantly increasing demand, our manufacturers of auto- 
mobiles have so perfected their carriages that last year 
we invaded with over three thousand machines every 
country in Europe, including France, the home of the 
automobile, and our greatest exportation was to 
Great Britain. 

It is difficult to estimate the value of the automobile 
wagon for delivering goods in great cities and their 
suburbs. Storekeepers have felt it in the enlarge- 
ment of their business and the reduction of cost. 



45 
Working men and women have felt it in increase of 

employment, and the consumer in cheaper goods and 

quicker delivery. The rural delivery carrier extends 

his area, and more outlying homes are brought within 

reach of this beneficent adjunct to the post office. 

The motor cab enables the woman shopper and the 

man of business to cover three times the amount of 

territory in comfort that was formerly accomplished 

with effort and fatigue. 

On the health side I know from experience that the 
ozone which is driven into the lungs by riding in an 
open car at a fair speed is a specific cure for insomnia 
and nervous troubles. Sanity and levelheadedness, 
together with healthy living, have come to those who 
have found it possible to live in the country and 
motor to their business places in the city and return 
to their homes. 

To the American tourist on the continent and in 
the British Isles the automobile has given an intimate 
knowledge of the civilization, habits and condition of 
the people, of the art treasures in wayside village 
churches, of history and scenery, never possible before 
except to the foot traveler to whom time was no 



4 6 
object, and who would acquire in six months of 
tramping only a portion of the pleasure and informa- 
tion which is now secured in six weeks by the auto- 
mobilist. Conversation, which largely depends upon 
narrative — and narrative is barren without imagina- 
tion — was becoming a lost art. It was being driven 
out by the absorption and cares of business and the 
preoccupation of bridge whist. But the automobile 
tourists have an inexhaustible fund of recreation and 
education in the interchange of their experiences. The 
automobile has brought to the front and given both 
a platform and an audience to the genius who once 
added so much to the gayety of nations and is known 
as the cheerful liar. 

With the same thought with which I began — speed 
and transportation — there is no subject more impor- 
tant to the farms and markets of the United States 
than good roads. Nothing has done so much to 
stimulate inquiry and activity in legislatures and local 
communities on this subject as the automobile. We 
have two million one hundred thousand miles of roads 
in this country, and of these only one hundred thou- 
sand are in any way improved. The rest are prac- 



47 
tically impassable several months in the year, and 
during the other months reduce the tonnage and 
increase the cost of carriage to a point which is de- 
structive to agricultural values and prosperity, except 
alone the lines of railroads and navigable rivers. It 
costs many dollars a ton a mile on a poor road and 
on a eood one onlv twentv-five cents a ton, or there- 
abouts, to move farm products to market Our 
trouble comes mainly from the fact that there is no 
concentration of authority in the building and the 
maintenance of highways. It would be difficult for 
the work to be done by the general government, and it 
is neelected sadlv in the States Massachusetts has 
made notable progress, and we in Xew York have 
done admirably by our fifty million bond appropria- 
tion, but the system in our State of town highway 
commissioners, with the small area of our towns, is 
fatal to the maintenance of good roads. The automo- 
bilist traveling through France is filled with admiration 
at the excellence and the admirable condition of its 
highways. There are twenty-three thousand miles of 
road in that country built and maintained by the gov- 
ernment. There is an inspector for even* mile, whose 



4 8 
duty it is to go over his section every day and repair 
any damage which has occurred. Every few miles 
constitute a district, and over that district is an 
engineer, who frequently investigates the work of the 
inspectors. He in turn reports to an engineer of a 
larger area, until finally the condition of all the roads 
and their administration come at frequent intervals 
into the department of the Minister of Public Works. 
There is under this system efficiency and economy 
unknown to our haphazard, wasteful and extravagant 
ways. We spend upon the seventy-four thousand 
miles of roads in the State of New York two million 
eight hundred thousand dollars a year to keep them in 
order, or almost forty dollars a mile. This vast sum 
is laid out without any local or general inspection or 
supervision, and most of it wasted. The same is true 
of the eighty millions of dollars a year which are 
spent upon the two million miles of highways in the 
United States. With roads which are in good order 
and kept so the year around there is ten dollars an 
acre added to the value of the farms, which would 
increase the farm wealth of our own State of New 
York nearly two hundred and eighty millions of dol- 



49 
lars. There are one hundred and fifty thousand 

automobile owners in our country, and everyone of 
them is an active agitator for the improvement of the 
highways. He is more than this — he is a teacher for 
improved systems in the government and manage- 
ment of country roads. 

This vast industry is destined to grow in the future 
almost as rapidly as it has advanced in the last 
decade. New uses will be found for the automobile 
because of the constant necessity in our highly organ- 
ized civilization for economy of time and economy in 
speed. Its enemies are the reckless chauffeurs, in- 
competent drivers and scorchers. They are the cause 
of hostile legislation ; they make the village authori- 
ties vindictive, and are responsible for frequent arrests 
for violation of impossible regulations to limit speed. 
The automobilists themselves must formulate and 
present to the legislatures wise provisions of law. Li- 
censes should be given only upon rigid examinations 
and withdrawn as a penalty for violation of the statutes. 

Speedways for automobiles will become as frequent 
as race tracks are for horses. There the racers will not 
risk the lives of others or injure the machines of those 



50 
who have them only for ordinary use or pleasure. 
There the sports can tempt Providence and defy the 
laws of safety. Even these races have their uses. They 
test not only the power and speed, but the safety and 
endurance of machines of different make. They fur- 
nish suggestions for improvements which are of value 
to the trade. Endurance contests also have their 
uses. The race from Pekin to Paris was universally 
laughed at when first suggested. It was, however, 
successfully accomplished and won by Prince Bor- 
ghese with his Italian car. Its historian has left a 
fascinating narrative of the journey. One of its 
results was to demonstrate that the caravan route 
over which the vast trade in tea and the return in 
manufactured products between China and Russia is 
transported, which now requires by camels about 
twenty days, can be traversed by the automobile in 
four. Here again speed revolutionizes with its econ- 
omies one of the famous century-old transportation 
routes of the world. The other scheme now under 
preparation and soon to be launched is the race from 
New York to Paris across the Behring Strait, which 
will undoubtedly have a wonderful economic value in 



5i 
demonstrating the possibilities of the motor through 

our own Alaska and the Canadian wilds. 

The last to take up the automobile have been rail- 
road men. They are accustomed to expect roadbed, 
ties, rails, wheels and the machinery of the locomotive 
to be perfect for twenty miles an hour and upward. 
The automobilist does his forty or fifty upon an ordi- 
nary highway with only a rubber tire and a pneumatic 
tube between him and eternity. If he picks up a nail 
or his steering gear gives out the morning paper tells 
the rest, and mourning friends lament his indiscre- 
tions. Stevenson, the great English engineer, was 
asked what the difference was in danger between 
fifty and a hundred miles an hour with the locomo- 
tive. He said, "None, because if you leave the 
track you will go to Hell with either." The con- 
dition with Stevenson was that you must go off the 
track, but with the automobilist there are num- 
berless conditions beside the track, and therefore 
constant inspection of the machine, vigilance in its 
operation, and proved intelligence in the driver are 
absolutely essential. 

Going over an Austrian road last summer I found 



0~ 



the farmers exceedingly hostile, and saw many wrecks 
of country wagons by the roadside. On making 
inquiry as to why there should be this hostility where 
before there had been nothing but courtesy, I found 
that two American parties had rushed through with 
their machines at over fifty miles an hour. They had 
left in their wake frightened horses, upset family vehi- 
cles, runaway teams, and a holocaust of geese and 
chickens. But they had left more — an intense and 
increasing local hostility to all automobile tourists. 

The automobile has destroyed some old-fashioned 
romances. Three-fourths of the families and happy 
homes in the villages and countryside are due to the 
side-bar buggy. The old family horse takes in the 
situation. One hand alone holds the reins, and when 
in absolute trustfulness the reins are dropped upon 
the dashboard and both arms are free the bans are 
published the next Sunday and the romance happily 
ends in matrimony. But in these days, when the girl 
is often the chauffeur and intent upon the wheel, while 
her beau is watching the speedometer and filled with 
selfish fears for himself, the romance of the road is im- 
possible. I think it is one of the causes which leads 



53 
to the complaint of the sociologist of the increase of 

bachelors and spinsters. 

Often arrests have their humorous side. One 
evening my chauffeur was taking our family to the 
theatre. It seemed to us that he was going at an 
ordinary rate, but at the theatre the bicycle policeman 
arrested him. I had to abandon the family and the 
play and go with him to the police station. The 
police captain was very courteous, but he had to obey 
the law and took bail for the chauffeur's appearance 
at the police court in the morning. I went there with 
him early. The victims inside the iron fence were the 
unfortunates who had been picked up on the street at 
night, mainly from too great conviviality. As I stood 
opposite the chauffeur, awaiting his turn to be called, 
one drunkard who had seen better days wandered 
sympathetically over to me and said in a whisper, 
"Senator, I am sorry to see you in here." He 
thought his experience had been duplicated by me. 

In Bohemia a team a hundred yards distant from 
us while we were going slowly down a hill turned 
around, broke the pole of the wagon, which was 
loaded with stone, and trotted off. We took on the 



54 
driver and carried him to where his horses were graz- 
ing alongside of the road. Next day a local lawyer 
wrote a letter to me saying that unless I paid thirty 
dollars for damages done to his client, a dollar and 
seventy-five cents for his fee, and two cents for the 
postage stamp he would attach the machine. I sent my 
guide to interview him, telling him to say to the man 
of the law that his fee was all right anyhow, and he 
settled for twenty dollars. I have been for over forty 
years on the railroad side of the negligence bar of the 
United States and never met with a case of such 
modesty. With the American lawyer the cow is 
always an Alderney, the horse a blue-blooded Mor- 
gan, the wagon made by Brewster, and the lawyer has 
a contract with his client for half of what he recovers. 
Gentlemen, you have done wisely in organizing this 
club. It should have other purposes than a garage 
for automobiles and rooms for club life. It should 
be active in investigating and promoting the best 
interests. of the industry, in looking for fields for its 
extension, and in suggesting wise legislation, general 
and local, for the safety and comfort of both the 
public and the automobilist. 



i2S*v 



013 763 31™ 



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